[2000-01-01-TWA-Total Impact TV] American Dragon vs Spanky

[Loss]

Awesome to see these two at this stage. Spanky's personality is off the charts. If you had told me one of these two would be a beloved megastar in a little more than a decade, I would have thought, oh, well it has to be Spanky based on this. He's also the better worker at this stage, as Danielson would improve greatly with time. Really fun match, though, with a huge dive to the floor from Spanky being the highlight. Shooter Schultz and Rudy Boy Gonzalez run in to attack the oddball tag team partners right when it looks like Spanky has a win in hand.

[soup23]

Spanky gives a really quick promo beforehand. Dragon is still wearing his mask here. Spanky comes out to “Baby One More Time” I find it amusing that three seconds into Dragon’s career in the 2000’s, he botches a boot to the face. Dragon’s chops had the sting they would in later years and the boots have good speed too. Spanky has the flash of his moves there but not a whole lot of polish so far. Dragon does with a more striking base mixing in the chops and kicks which get over no matter what. A hangman guillotine is a unique submission move that Dragon uses here. The announcer calls it a Tarantula. Spanky’s plancha looked great as he hits the floor hard. Spanky’s moonsault has less successful execution but the crowd is into it even giving a “one more time” chant which is progressive in 2000. Spanky hits another cool move on the outside with a running back forearm springboarding off the stairs. Dragon’s forearm in the corner and clotheslines have great stiffness behind them. A dragon suplex looks like the match is won for Am Drag but Shooter Shultz, Bone Crusher, and Rudy Boy Gonzalez all come in for the interference. A really fun match to start off our look at these career of these two. I continue to be impressed with how polished Ki, Am Drag, and Styles look at this point in their career. **3/4

[benj]

Impressive match considering their experience level. Some one send Nakamura Spanky 2000 tapes, or Spanky 2017 gifs to learn the art of wrestling charisma. A couple botched moves, but the strikes/dives looked good, which led to a fun match, Thumbs up.

[Tim Evans]

First time seeing HBK's TWA. I get a KAW vibe without the weapons and music. I'm surprised how better Spanky was than Dragon here. He had great charisma and seems to hit his moves better. Lots of flying from Spank and Dragon tries to ground him. Funny to hear HBK call the Guillotine a tarantula. Shawn sounded stoned out of his mind on commentary. One of my favorite unknown guys Shooter Shultz runs in for the DQ. Good tv match. These guys would have a better match on MCW tv about 6 months later.

[goc]

I didn't see anyone else mention it here but to me it felt like the commentator was doing a bootleg Joey Styles gimmick and trying to copy his cadence. This was a pretty fun match between two guys who clearly had big ideas for how they wanted to wrestle but weren't totally polished yet so some of the stuff they did didn't look that good. Spanky's dive was pretty cool that as it had that reckless "I'm willing to die" quality that I like to see in a dive. I have no idea who Shooter Shultz is outside of a name I used to see playing EWR back in the early 2000s.

[Robert S]

A couple of random thoughts:

- Spanky here has a physique like 2004 Jack Evans

- The ring here is huge for an indy promotion. Did HBK buy an old ring from the WWF?

- Considering both guys are three months pro (and probably did not train much more than 3 or 4 months before that) they try a lot of things. Of course they don't hit everything but enough that it does not make them look bad or kill the match.

- Danielson is throwing some pretty stiff stuff here for a rookie. I thought that he picked that up later on training in the FMW dojo and at MCW with Regal.

[Ship Canal]

I could be wrong, but I'm sure I picked up an RF Video HBK shoot around this time that had this, and some other TWA matches on it. It's a bit of a long story (cheap plug: hear it on episode 3 of the Puro Pourri Podcast, right here, on the PWO Network!), but through a local shop we were able to get a lot of tapes and this particular shoot was being hyped by the guy behind the counter for ages. I have no recollection whether it actually contained any remotely decent stuff during the interview portion, and lord knows these days I'd balk at listening to Shawn talk for an hour plus non stop, but it did bring back nice memories of my adolescence.

I kind of loved the huge "Texas Discount Furniture" logo in the middle of the ring. Reminded me of the Portland footage in which they'd big up the upcoming events at the fleamarkets, Memphis tapes complete with adverts for local car show rooms between the matches... I dig that kind of thing.

As for the match itself, I thought this was fascinating given the respective career trajectories of both guys. What I found most intriguing was how the tiny little details that the guys actually lacked (hardly a criticism for guys as green as this), especially Danielson. Just little things like there being very obvious, defined phases in his work as opposed to him having quite grasped how to transition into things without it seeming a bit jarring. He was wrestling with a lot of full stops here, as opposed to commas, if you will.

Super fun and a great piece of history. I wish I could say I had both these guys marked for greatness when I first saw them as a kid, but as pointed out above, I imagine Spanky was the guy I would have viewed as the next big thing based purely on this match.

[Laney]

Cool to watch these guys early in their career. I have to agree that Spanky is the better performer at this point, although he has a couple awkward moments springing off the ropes. It seemed that these two tried to fit in as much moves as possible during the time they were given in order to try to impress. You can see the potential in both of these guys and it's amazing to consider how much they improved within a 2 year time span from this match.

 

**1/4

[AstroBoy]

I actually thought Dragon looked pretty good here. Spanky is frighteningly skinny but his mixture of charisma and wild bumping makes him stand out here. Going to be very interested in seeing these two improve together throughout the year. Aside from the weird botch at the beginning and the stop-go kind of feeling, this was a perfectly good little match.

[fishbaugh]

Spanky has always jumped off the screen. Loved the use of Britney as entrance music and the huge dive -- fun TV match and a really cool snapshot of two future stars (though I agree with Loss that just going from this match, only one of them looked like it).

[WingedEagle]

I've been slowly marching through Danielson's career and am in the midst of this ROH run so its really interesting to see him at this stage. What stood out most was just how impressively and naturally both men looked simply moving around the ring, as well presenting a compact match with flow and progression rather than simply hopping from spot to spot. While you can see how raw they are from strikes and the execution, or lack thereof, on certain spots, they seemed confident and at ease at every stage -- quick opening, chops, holds and finally working towards big spots. You can also already see that Kendrick may be a bigger fan of certain showmanship aspects than benefits his character. They bring the crowd with them through to the unsatisfying finish. It'll be fun to see how quickly and notably both develop.

 

**3/4

[Migs]

Spanky's promo and music are so wonderfully 2000.

 

I've been a little afraid of going back to this era because my memories are so strong and I wasn't sure how much holds up. Really good to see how solid this match was, at a time before both guys had any rep and were really early in the process. Cuts a good pace, shows off some of their stuff - very much a new generation studio TV match. As others have said, really curious to watch the development, as we get towards 2001 when both guys really develop pretty big reps as top workers.

[cramerjason87]

I have to agree with the idea that these two had a ambitious vision of what they wanted their matches to be. Considering how inexperienced they both were I was impressed. There was the tentative moments as they transitioned between spots but they built a few good sequences. Spanky's off the ropes headscissors and the tope looked great. Interesting tv match.

[Wahoos Leg]

Highly enjoyable way to kick off this project for me. Spanky definitely looked like the more polished of the two (I'll echo those who enjoyed his dive to the outside), but this was a pretty impressive match given how green both were at the time.

[dkookypunk43]

​I agree with the sediment that Spanky looked a bit more polished than Dragon here but it was a fun match to see where these two are now compared to what they could do back then. You could see the hunger and the desire for pro wrestling was apparent here. I felt that for the level they were at, it was a good modern cruiserweight match, you could see both guys' potential here.

[Moonsault Marvin]

Fun match. It had a couple of stilted sequences, but you could see both of these guys had potential and were quite good for the short time they had been wrestling. Kendrick might have more personality here than he currently does.

[Karl]

Enjoyed the end of the match way more than the beginning section. Really raw in spots, but thats to be expected. Fun TV match **

[aethelred]

While it was nowhere near the level of quality, this reminded me of those Lightning Kid vs Jerry Lynn matches from 1990. Kid reached WWF 3 years later and Lynn turned up in WCW for a while 5 years later. This comparison makes it even more striking that Danielson didn't have a run in a mainstream promotion in the entire period to be covered by PWO 2K. I think a recurring theme of this project will be how incredible it really was that so many great wrestlers were not picked up by WWE in their prime.

[puropotsy]

I'd say both guys looked great here with Spanky seeming to be a little ahead of Dragon at the time. Spanky's flying was great and Iove that a move was referred to as a Spankensteiner. Dragon's clotheslines were pretty stiff and his dragon suplex was a thing of beauty.

[smitlick]

Match obviously doesnt make it onto the list without them becoming stars later on. Would be nice to see if who if anyone still has all the original tapes and whether WWE would pick them up considering the thirst they have for footage.

 

* for me. Its pretty cringy in moments and other then a nice dive everything flows pretty badly.

[Chess Knight]

I seriously watched the Kendrick promo nearly 20 times. Deliciously 90s, if you asked anybody on Earth when it happened, with no context but just those 12 seconds, they would bet their life it didn't happen after 2001. Boyyyyyyyyyyyyy. Ok the matc---WAIT SPANKY COMES OUT TO BRITNEY SPEARS. AND HE'S DANCING! I would pay for a comp just filled with the first 90 seconds of this on loop, like 25 discs worth. The match can only disappoint, now.

 

Hell I liked this way more than I'd've thought. Kendrick brought more personality and felt more natural, but I think I preferred Danielson's offense to anything. Needed perfecting, but I can think of a few shots he delivered that definitely don't look rookie level. Great snap suplex, and he took a hell of a tumble to the outside, too.

[Childs]

This was really good for what was essentially a student match. Yes, Kendrick had the more developed persona, but you could see the roots of what Danielson would become in the crispness with which he did basic moves--from chops to forearms to clotheslines to suplexes. He did not look like an 18-year-old kid who'd been training for less than a year. One of the smartest of many nifty things about this project is the focus on tracking WOTD contenders from their origins.

[Lee Benaka]

I thought this was an enjoyable little match and agree with most of what has been said about the awkwardness. I think I appreciated the stiffness of Danielson's blows, suplex, and the nice guillotine more than Kendrick's continuous spots, although some of them were well-done. The interference at the end was very well-timed, and I thought Rudy Boy Gonzales took an impressive bump to the floor in the post-match melee. Around ** for me, but I'm glad I watched it.

[GSR]

Quick pre-match promo from Spanky wishing ‘good luck boy’ to the American Dragon who is challenging for his TV title today. Dragon comes out to ‘Born in the USA’, while Spanky is out to Britney Spears’ ‘Oops, I Did it Again’. Ooh, Shawn Michaels on commentary. Kendrick looks tiny and so young here. The two of them start out mirroring one another, and even back in 2000 Dragon lays his chops in. A lovely series of armbar reversals and escapes, ‘Spankensteiner’ and then Spanky whips Dragon into the turnbuckles, runs up him and flips backwards but is met with a clothesline. More stinging chops and a guillotine submission from Dragon which HBK refers to as ‘some sort of tarantula’. Spanky with a great dive over the top rope to the floor on to Dragon, missile dropkick off the top and a moonsault for a near fall. As they both end up on the outside, Spanky uses the steps to leap off and nail Dragon with a flying elbow. Dragon with a stiff forearm and a pair of clotheslines, the second folds Spanky over double. Dragon Suplex and Shooter Schultz is out to attack Dragon and break up the pin. He is quickly followed by Bonecrusher and Rudy Boy Gonzales, and Gonzales with a sweet as superkick to Schultz. Dragon and Spanky then team up to clear the ring of the three.

 

From a historical point of view, probably the most interesting match of the month to open things, seeing these two at the start of their careers. Dragon looks like he’d be a star in the New Japan Junior division, and if you were to tell me one of these would end up the biggest star in the industry, I wouldn’t have said it would be him. Despite one miscommunication at the start, Dragon already looks like one very tidy worker. Spanky is clearly the flashier of the two, but he looks more raw than Danielson and doesn’t have much in the way of transitions (his moonsault also needs some work!). The two of them tried a lot here, and considering their level of experience and how short they had been wrestling I enjoyed this one immensely.

[grendel]

This was my first introduction to TWA. I have always been a fan of these two and to see them early in their careers was fun. I think both guys made a good match. Spanky as the daredevil and American Dragon working the japanese junior style. Shades of things to come...........